Is it known what the contractor was hired to do? I guess Microsoft didn't just post on rent-a-coder to get the lowest bid on "a microblogging site like Plurk.co

Is it known what the contractor was hired to do? I guess Microsoft didn't just post on rent-a-coder to get the lowest bid on "a microblogging site like Plurk.com". How deeply was MSFT involved in the project spec and to what degree was that spec based on Plurk?